subpoenas are "invalid" and "not subject to civil or criminal enforcement" because the House's long-standing deposition rules do not allow the participation of attorneys from the White House or other government agencies.74 These claims are without basis and unsupported by precedent.
The Letter Opinion cited statements from previous Presidents and Attorneys General that directly undercut the Administration's position. For example, President James K. Polk, stated that in an impeachment inquiry the House had power to "penetrate into the most secret recesses of the Executive Departments."75 In addition, Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, who later served on the Supreme Court, stated that "pertinent information would be supplied in impeachment proceedings, usually instituted at the suggestion of the Department and for the good of the administration of justice."76
In his letters conveying the President's direction, Mr. Cipollone advanced remarkably politicized arguments and legal theories unsupported by the Constitution, judicial precedent, and more than 200 years of history. These letters effectuated the President's order and campaign to obstruct and thwart the House's exercise of its sole power of impeachment under the Constitution. They are rebutted as follows:
- The Impeachment Inquiry is Constitutional: According to Mr. Cipollone, "the President did nothing wrong," and "there is no basis for an impeachment inquiry."77
President Trump has repeatedly described his call with President Zelensky as "perfect."78
Speaking for President Trump, Mr. Cipollone also asserted that the impeachment inquiry is "partisan and unconstitutional," "a naked political strategy that began the day he was inaugurated, and perhaps even before," and that it "plainly seeks to reverse the election of 2016 and to influence the election of 2020."79
However, as this report details in Section I, Congress found abundant evidence of a scheme directed by the President to solicit foreign election interference by pressing the newly-elected President of Ukraine to announce publicly politically-motivated investigations to benefit President Trump's own reelection campaign. Fundamentally, the Constitutional validity of an impeachment inquiry cannot depend on a President's view that he did nothing wrong or on the political composition of the House. Such an extreme reimagining of the Constitution would render the Article I impeachment power meaningless and provide the President with power the Constitution does not grant him to thwart, manipulate, and stonewall an impeachment inquiry conducted by the House, including by concealing information of his own misconduct.80 Taken to its logical conclusion, the President's position would eliminate the impeachment power in every year during which a political party other than the President's is in power. Under this approach, the impeachments of President Clinton, President Nixon, and President Andrew Johnson would not have been permitted.81
The purpose of an impeachment inquiry is for the House to collect evidence to determine for itself whether the President may have committed an impeachable offense warranting articles of impeachment. Because the Constitution vests the House alone with "the sole Power of Impeachment," it is not for the President to decide whether the House is exercising that power properly or prudently. The President is not free to arrogate the
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